Anthropic signs $13.7 billion computing power agreement with "Trump-linked company" Rum Group

AI unicorn Anthropic is extending its compute infrastructure to politically-charged emerging cloud service providers.

On September 13, according to The Information citing sources familiar with the matter, Anthropic has signed a six-year compute leasing deal worth a total of $13.7 billion with the Rum Group.

The predecessor of Rum Group is the conservative video platform Rumble, whose early investors include Peter Thiel and current US Vice President J.D. Vance. The platform also hosts Trump’s Truth Social and official White House live streams. This deal further intensifies Anthropic’s direct association with Trump’s political circles. The media often refers to this company as “Trump-linked.”

Following the signing of the agreement, Anthropic’s total compute procurement will further expand. According to previous reports, over the past year Anthropic has already signed agreements with several cloud service providers—including Google, SpaceX, and Nscale—amassing at least 14.8 gigawatts of computing capacity, with a total cost that could reach as high as $517 billion over the next decade.

Data center still under construction, financing gap remains

The core asset of this agreement is the Rum Group’s data center located in Maysville, Georgia, which is still under construction.

This facility holds 120 MW of grid access rights, with expected expansion to 180 MW—making it a scarce resource in today’s tight compute market. Northern Data previously stated the facility would be operational by the end of this year, but it is unclear whether that schedule remains on track.

The issue is that the Rum Group currently lacks sufficient funds to complete the project.

In its August securities filing, Rum Group explicitly stated that the company “has no funds” available for data center construction or GPU procurement, and expects to cover most expenditures through additional debt or equity financing. According to people familiar with the matter, Rum Group plans to finance the Georgia project via loans.

Rum Group CEO Chris Pavlovski stated to The Information in June this year that the company is exploring multiple financing options, giving "priority to debt financing," and said discussions may include introducing external institutions for credit support—i.e., enhancing the attractiveness of its debt to investors through guarantees or other commitments.

According to previous calculations by The Information, the cost of building a 1 GW AI data center equipped with server chips is about $6 billion, which means the construction cost for the Georgia project could exceed $1 billion. To date, Rum Group has not publicly disclosed the full cost of the project.

Anthropic receives stock options tied to compute usage

In addition to compute procurement, the agreement also includes an equity arrangement.

Reportedly, Anthropic will receive options to purchase up to 51 million shares of Rum Group at $0.01 per share. Last Friday, Rum Group’s stock closed at $7.17, with approximately 400 million shares outstanding and a market capitalization around $2.8 billion.

The option exercise conditions are directly tied to compute procurement volume: half of them are linked to the compute usage at the Maysville data center, while the other half require Anthropic to purchase an additional approximately 400 to 500 MW of compute at another Rum Group project site before they can be exercised.

Rum Group: From conservative video platform to AI cloud provider

Rum Group’s transformation path is rather unique.

Rumble was founded in 2013, initially as a YouTube alternative for small and medium creators, but rapidly expanded within conservative circles after the 2020 US election. In May 2021, Rumble completed a $25 million financing round led by Peter Thiel and J.D. Vance, with a valuation at that time of $500 million.

In June this year, Rumble acquired German emerging cloud service provider Northern Data in an all-stock deal valued at around $767 million and immediately changed its name to Rum Group, formally entering the AI cloud computing business.

The addition of Northern Data brought Rum Group 22,000 Nvidia Hopper architecture GPUs, most of which are currently leased in the European and US markets, and includes the under-construction Georgia data center.

Reportedly, as of June this year, Rum Group also planned to spend $270 million to purchase Nvidia Blackwell 300 chips to fulfill customer contracts with Together AI.